Eli Bonilla
Back to workCASE · ARC
Enterprise delivery-plan interface rendered on a dark technical slab.
P-02 · ARC

ARC, LLC

Evolving a custom commerce platform into an integrated enterprise operations system.

Category
Systems · Operational software
Year
2018
§ S-01

Legacy operations

Operations ran across disconnected tools. Ordering happened in manual portals, sales were tracked in spreadsheets, and each department held its own copy of the record.

The workflow crossed all of them, and the operator was responsible for keeping them synchronized. Manual reconciliation introduced friction, persistent errors, and slower cycle times, with no single place to read the state of a transaction.

  • N-01

    Manual ordering portals

    Orders were entered by hand into vendor-facing portals, with no handoff back into internal systems.

  • N-02

    Spreadsheet sales tracking

    Sales activity lived in spreadsheets maintained per person, versioned by file name.

  • N-03

    Disconnected silos

    Sales, operations, accounting, and fulfillment each held partial records that had to be reconciled by hand.

  • N-04

    No centralized transaction state

    No system held the full transaction. Answering a customer question required checking several sources.

§ S-02

Custom operating platform

The first step was an internally built operating platform: a single surface for customer data, product configuration, and order entry. It was an interim architecture: not a finished product. But it established one place where a transaction could exist as a record.

  • C-01

    Customer data

    Accounts, contacts, and terms consolidated into a single reference rather than per-department copies.

  • C-02

    Product arrays

    Product families and variant attributes structured as dynamic arrays the order form could read.

  • C-03

    Order entry

    A consolidated entry surface that produced one order record instead of parallel manual re-entry.

§ S-03

System integration

With a record in place, the work moved to data movement. The platform was mapped downstream into QuickBooks for invoicing and financial record, ShipStation for fulfillment, and management dashboards for operational reporting: so that entering an order once populated everything that depended on it.

FIG. A-01 · Data movement / system map
FIG. A-01: Integration topology of the Automated Order RecordThe Automated Order Record sits at the center of the map. Oracle Sales Cloud (CRM) and Oracle CPQ (pricing and quoting) synchronize payloads into the record. The record sends unidirectional requests out to QuickBooks for accounting and ShipStation for fulfillment. Four integrations are registered in total.LINKLINKLINKLINKORACLE CPQPRICING / QUOTINGPAYLOAD SYNCSHIPSTATIONFULFILLMENTUNIDIRECTIONALORACLE SALES CLOUDCRM / CONFIGUREPAYLOAD SYNCQUICKBOOKSACCOUNTINGUNIDIRECTIONALAUTOMATED ORDER RECORDAOR.INTERNAL:5432STATUS:NOMINAL4 INTEGRATIONS REGISTEREDLEGENDActive Payload SyncUnidirectional RequestStatus: NominalINTEGRATION TOPOLOGY: AOR SYSTEM / v1.016:9 · 1600×900
Integration topology of the Automated Order Record: Sales Cloud and CPQ synchronize into the record; the record drives QuickBooks and ShipStation downstream.
Before
  1. Manual portal order
  2. Spreadsheet log
  3. Manual re-entry
  4. Accounting
  5. Separate shipping entry
After
  1. Order entry
  2. Order record
  3. QuickBooks
  4. ShipStation
  5. Management dashboards
§ S-04

Enterprise modernization

The custom platform reached its ceiling. The transition moved operations onto Oracle Sales Cloud and Oracle CPQ, carrying the established workflow into an enterprise system under a configuration-first mandate rather than a rebuild.

Implementation sequence · SOW
Phase 01
Discovery and workflow mapping
Phase 02
Sales Cloud configuration and data migration
Phase 03
CPQ configuration: products, pricing, approvals
Phase 04
Integration to accounting and fulfillment
Phase 05
UAT, training, and staged deployment
FIG. A-04 · SOW delivery plan
FIG. A-04: SOW delivery planA five-phase sequence tracker spanning January through December. Discovery and workflow mapping is complete; Sales Cloud and CPQ configuration are active; accounting integration and staged deployment are pending. Ten milestones and the twenty-second-week reference marker are shown.SYS://SEQ-TRACKERGANTT.VIEW // 5-TASK SEQUENCE // SOW RECORDCOMPLETEACTIVEPENDINGHOLDNOW:WK22 ▌TASK-ID · OWNER · %DONEJANFEBMARAPRMAYJUNJULAUGSEPOCTNOVDECP-01[COMPLETE]PHASE 01: DISCOVERY AND WORKFLOW MAPPING100%STRATEGYDISCOVERYP-02[ACTIVE]PHASE 02: SALES CLOUD CONFIGURATION AND DAT…62%CRM-OPSSALES-CLOUDP-03[ACTIVE]PHASE 03: CPQ CONFIGURATION: PRODUCTS, PRIC…28%REV-ENGCPQ-CONFIGP-04[PENDING]PHASE 04: INTEGRATION TO ACCOUNTING AND FUL…0%SYS-INTINT-ACCTP-05[PENDING]PHASE 05: UAT, TRAINING, AND STAGED DEPLOYM…0%QA-TRAINUAT-DEPLOYTASKS:5 · ACT:2 · MS:10▨=HASH · ╱=DIAG · ⊞=CROSS · ▪=BLOCK · ◆=MILESTONE · ▌=NOWPROPOSED 14-WEEK IMPLEMENTATION // READ-ONLY
FIG. A-04: Initial SOW delivery plan: proposed 14-week implementation sequence; actual rollout evolved through staged deployment and subsequent change requests.
§ S-05

Iterative delivery

The rollout did not land as a single delivery. It evolved through staged deployment and a sequence of change requests, each closing a gap the configured baseline did not cover.

  1. CR#1

    Gmail / OSC sync

    Correspondence tied back to the account and opportunity record so customer history stayed with the transaction.

  2. CR#2

    Pricing logic

    Discounting, tax structures, and multi-tier pricing moved behind the interface instead of being applied by hand.

  3. CR#3

    Order management & shipping

    Order lifecycle and fulfillment status surfaced inside the operator's view rather than in a separate system.

§ S-06

System states

Two state models carried most of the operational weight. Each was specified as an explicit sequence so that a stalled transaction could be read at a glance and resolved from where it stopped.

Pricing & approvals
  1. Quote drafted
  2. Pricing applied
  3. Discount threshold
  4. Approval routed
  5. Approved
  6. Quote released
FIG. A-02 · Pricing & Approval Interaction Model
FIG. A-02: Pricing and Approval Interaction ModelA quote is drafted by the operator, then pricing is applied from the CPQ rule set. The quote reaches a discount threshold gate. If the discount is within threshold, the quote is released directly. If it exceeds the threshold, the quote is routed to a manager approval queue, approved, and then released. Quote released is the terminal state.
FIG. A-02: Quote path from drafting through the discount-threshold gate: within threshold the quote releases directly; above threshold it routes for approval before release.
Order lifecycle
  1. Order created
  2. Accounting sync
  3. Fulfillment queued
  4. Shipped
  5. Invoiced
  6. Closed
FIG. A-03 · Order lifecycle interaction model
FIG. A-03: Order lifecycle interaction modelAn order is created on the order record, then synchronized to QuickBooks for accounting. Fulfillment is queued in ShipStation and the order is shipped. QuickBooks then invoices the order, and the order is closed. Closed is the terminal state; the sequence runs through six states across three systems.
FIG. A-03: Order state from creation through accounting sync, fulfillment, invoicing, and close, annotated with the system that owns each state.
§ S-07

Architectural role

The role was architectural rather than executional: defining what the workflow required, how data had to move, and the interaction model the configuration needed to support: then working alongside the delivery team implementing the platform.

§ S-08

Outcomes

  • O-01

    Operational efficiency

    Improved operational efficiency by approximately 50% by replacing manual cross-system entry with integrated data movement.

  • O-02

    Consolidation & profit

    Consolidated four departments and contributed to over $500,000 in additional profit.

  • O-03

    Market expansion

    Implemented a sales analytics database that helped identify new business markets and regions, contributing to expansion into South America.

  • O-04

    Platform evolution

    Established an operational foundation that evolved from custom internal tooling into Oracle Sales Cloud + CPQ and subsequent system extensions.